'Venice', a new Brazilian apple cultivar from Epagri

The apple ‘SCS426 Venice’ was developed by Santa Catarina State Agricultural Research and Rural Extension Agency (Epagri) and is the result of a cross between ‘Epagri 404-Imperatriz’ and ‘Epagri 406-Baronesa’. It has medium cold requirement, high resistance to glomerella leaf spot, fruits have long cold storage, high visual and organoleptic quality. The objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance of ‘Venice’ in São Joaquim - Santa Catarina State. The work was carried out through the crop seasons 2011/2012 until 2017/2018. The trees were planted in 2009, and grafted on G.814, with 1×4 m spacing. ‘Venice’ was compared to ‘Fuji Suprema’ and ‘Galaxy’. The dates of occurrence of the main phenological stages, yield tree^‑1 and the physicochemical characteristics of fruit were evaluated. Considering the general behavior through the years, ‘Venice’ began budbreak on August 16, an average of 15 days before ‘Galaxy’ and ‘Fuji Suprema’. Likewise, its flowering occurred between August 31 and September 25, while its harvest occurred in the second half of March, between ‘Galaxy’ and ‘Fuji Suprema’. ‘Venice’ produced an average 21 kg tree^‑1 and 35 t ha^‑1, with a cumulative yield 30% higher than the others cultivars evaluated. Regarding quality indexes, at harvest, ‘Venice’ showed an average of 64% red color in a bicolor pattern, 13 °Brix, acidity of 62 Meq L^‑1 and flesh firmness of 87 N. Its fruits are sweet, well balanced, firm, crisp and juicy, which makes ‘Venice’ an option for diversification of apple cultivars in Brazil.